Thank's guys. First time I used this rig and was very pleased. I'm using a Nikon D200 in a hugyfot housing with dual Inon Z240:s. All pictures shot with the 10.5 fisheye. The whaleshark was shot with ISO 100 at 1/125 f8-11, I believe. Whale shark side shot was from about 1 metre and the head shot from 50 centimetres (yes, it's a helluva wide lens) with strobes set to 5.6 according to the very-hard-to-understand Inon-system, think it's about 1/5-1/4 power, out/under and back of the camera to light just a little tiny bit from underneath.
The 10.5 is also the reason the water look so clear. In fact it was rather murky most of the time, as one can expect in filter feeder waters. A real pain for backscatter, even when shooting in natural light!!! Viz was however good (for the place) on a couple of dives to the more far out sites @ circa 20 metres. The norm was 10-14 metres.
All in all trip was good. We did not see as many mantas as we had hoped to. Made three dives on manta reef and had mantas on one. Without the mantas it is just an ordinary dive inmo. With mantas it's spectacular. There were mantas sighted on a few other reefs as well, but not by us. According to the divecentre (Tofo) there had been a draft recently, after a big storm. We saw whalesharks many times on our way to and from the divesites. Skipper stopped the boat and everybody got in to snorkel in a hurry. We had one good encounter where the shark stayed for a few minutes. On other occations the shark just swam away or dived. Not an ideal layout for me as a photographer with a relatively heavy and andvanced rig that need some preparation... I believe it would be better to go on a dedicated snorkel safari and only bring camera in housing without the strobes and shoot natural light. Never saw whalesharks on scuba. Saw white tip reef sharks on a few dives, once a zebra (leopard) shark, a huge turtle, a couple of big stingrays, too many moray eels and lobsters. Plenty of schooling goatfish, fusliliers, snappers, grunts... No predatory fish like barracuda or jacks in bigger schools... Coral very sparse and not very developed, as expected from a place this far south and with generally comparatively low viz. I found the deep dive sites to be a LOT better than the shallow ones dived in the afternoon. To be honest, the close shallow ones were quite a disappointment and frankly, not really worth it.
The dive site that stood out was Amazon 8besides manta reef with mantas). Lots and lots of fish.
The better dives are normally quite far away and it means a lot of logistics and travelling time, so double tank trips are nessecary to get more than one 'good' dive a day.
We dived with Tofo Scuba, which seems to be a well run operation. As far as I could see boats and equipment were in order. But the groups were too big with 8-10 divers+staff of at least two. Also too much herding around, even when conditions were easy and the group were consisted of experienced guests only. It appears like they are mostly used to back packers and casual divers and haven't really adapted to more demanding, well travelled and experienced divers. I chatted with some other divers, a CMAS instructor from France and a two Belgian guys who were PADI instructors, and there seemed to be a consensus that it was 'too' safety oriented, (treating everyone more or less like fresh OW divers) that it actually spoiled some of the fun. Dives where normally cut short, most dives I surfaced with half of my tank left and usually had to start the ascent with 5-6 minutes of bottom time left. I'd say it is all understandable from a DC point of view, but a bit frustrating for me as a guest.
Tofo Scuba has moved and are no longer on the Casa Barry premises. They are now on the other side of the beach, next to Dinos. If we had known we might have tried to find accomodation closer to the dive centre, or chosen another dive centre. It wasn't a big problem as Tofo did pick us up every morning and drove us back to Casa Barrys each afternoon, but a bit inconvenient. Especially having to haul a heavy camera rig fort and back.
Casa Barry was ok. First we stayed in a 'brick casita' in the back of the 'compound'. The room was clean and very much ok, but it was very uncosy. Far from a tropical 'paradise'. In fact it was next to a saw mill. After a few days we changed to a 'chalet' facing the beach. This was completely different. It was very nice in every aspect. The price is about three-four times more expensive than a casita, but the chalet is originally intended for a family or a group of four and not a couple.
The restaurant was good. In a week you do run out of dishes, but there are more restaurants in Tofo so you can alternate. I really enjoed the prawns. The sushi chef was never there when we wanted the sushi, so i'd be interested in a report on that.
The restaurant kitchen didn't open until 7.30 in the morning, so we weren't able to get a proper breakfast before going out on a double tank dive in the morning (normally pick up at 7) - a 3-4 hour affair. They managed to arrange a few slices of white bread, some very bad cheese and butter, that of course was floating in the morning, for us to keep in the room. Some mornings we were also able to get some bananas on the market. Casa Barry needs to rethink this if they want to keep their diving guests that are not self catering. Especially now when they don't have the geographical advantage of being close to Tofo Scuba.
So in short, if you want to dive with mantas and snorkle with whale sharks, this is a good place (even though we were a bit unlucky with the mantas). The reefs are not that spectacular. Diversity of fish is only ok, but quantity is very good. There are very little sharks of other spieces than mentioned to be seen in this area, for that go to S.A. Try to find a dive centre that will focus on small groups, it's worth paying extra for. Go to the 'far' sites.
cheers
Christian